The Justice Department’s (DoJ) bid to arrest former CNN anchor Don Lemon and four others was rejected, after a lower-court panel refused to approve the warrants to take them into custody.
The three-judge panel, made up of Obama appointee Jane Kelly, and Steven Graz and Jonathan Kobes, denied the request by the Trump administration to arrest Lemon and the others for their part in a demonstration inside a church in St Paul, Minnesota.
In a brief concurring statement, Judge Graz said that prosecutors had “clearly establish[ed] probable cause for all five arrest warrants … [but] the government has failed to establish that it has no other adequate means of obtaining the requested relief.”
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Raw Egg Nationalist reports: The DoJ initially sought to charge eight people, including Lemon, in connection with the demonstration, but Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko would only approve charges against three prospective defendants and said a grand-jury indictment should be sought for the remaining five.
Madonna Exposes Illuminati Blood Sacrifice Rituals in Leaked Footage: ‘The Currency is Kids' Blood'
Prosecutors chose instead to ask Minnesota Chief US District Judge Patrick Schiltz to review the evidence and order the arrests by 2 pm local time on Friday.
In response, Schiltz sent an angry letter to Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Steven Colloton, in which he described the demand as “unheard of in our district or, as best I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit. I have surveyed all of our judges—some of whom have been judges in our District for over 40 years—and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review a magistrate judge’s denial of an arrest warrant.”
“The reason why this never happens,” Schiltz added, “is likely that, if the government does not like the magistrate judge’s decision, it can either improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment.”
Schiltz told Colloton: “Apparently, the government believes that the arrests of the leaders of the Cities Church invasion—whose arrests have received widespread international attention — will not deter copycats, but arresting five additional suspects will.”
“The five people whom the government seeks to arrest are accused of entering a church, and the worst behavior alleged about any of them is yelling horrible things at the members of the church. None committed any acts of violence. The leaders of the group have been arrested and their arrests have received widespread publicity. There is absolutely no emergency… The government can still take its case to a grand jury anytime it wishes.”
The three suspects arrested so far—Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, and William Kelly—are charged with conspiracy against rights by interfering with freedom to worship.
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, told The Megyn Kelly Show that the DOJ is weighing the use of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a federal law that also covers interference with religious worship, to charge Lemon and the other potential defendants.
